Grammar Lessons

Double Negative Defense:  Apparently Trump genuinely thought that he had done a bang up job in Helsinki, at least until harshly critical comments starting coming in from usually loyal press outlets, legislators and cronies, including the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board who called Trump’s performance at his press conference with Putin “a personal and national embarrassment,” and the usually fawning Newt Gingrich who called for Trump to “clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin,” saying that they were “the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected – immediately.”  Initially, Trump was defiant, but in response to calls and comments from members of Congress, many of whom were encouraged to speak their mind by Chief of Staff Kelly, and upon the insistence of VP Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo that he needed to clean up his mess, he reluctantly agreed to “clarify” his Helsinki remarks.  During a scheduled meeting with a few members of Congress with dedicated daughter Ivanka across the table, he mustered up the energy to read from a hastily prepared script.  He said that contrary to what he’d said in Helsinki and what he’s been saying for months he does believe  the assessment of the United States’ intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered in the campaign, although he managed to slip in one of those unscripted “and it could have been others.”  He went on to say that he had misspoken in Helsinki only because he left the word “not” out of his statement, it should have been “I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia, sort of a double negative…. So you can put that in, and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good.”  Some, like Senators Rob Portman and Marco Rubio actually bought the “double negative” crap, but most found it laughable.  In an editorial entitled “Trump Says He Got Only One Word Wrong, Please Decide For Yourself” the New York Times printed Trump’s excuse alongside the entire text of his Helsinki statement, driving home the point that his idiocy went far behind a failure to include one “not.”  Even the Wall Street Journal didn’t buy his explanation, they noted that he “rarely admits mistakes, so it was good on Tuesday to see him reverse his claim of Monday that Russia may not have interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. The problem is that he still doesn’t seem to understand the nature of the adversary known as Vladimir Putin whom he wants to make his friend.”  They, like the rest of us, want to know who was the great brain trust who came up with the ridiculous “double negative” defense.  During the day the usually complicit Senate Majority Leader McConnell “suggested” that the Senate might move forward with new sanctions against Russia in response to Trump's Putin meeting and House Speaker Ryan said he’d be “more than happy” to consider more sanctions.  Senator Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was so encouraged by the willingness of other Republicans to criticize Trump that he said that the “dam has finally broken.”  While his relief is probably premature, that dam seems to be rather strong and self- healing, after all it did right itself after Charlottesville, he did take advantage of the moment, managing to get the administration to commit to send Secretary of State Pompeo to testify before the Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the Helsinki meeting and to provide more information on where things really stand in North Korea. Minority Leader Schumer and a number of other Democrats want the US translator who attended the Trump-Putin meeting subpoenaed to appear before Congress.  As to Trump, a la Charlottesville he’s already started pulling back from those scripted remarks.  Last night he tweeted “The meeting between President Putin and myself was a great success, except in the Fake News Media!”  The Russian’s agree, Putin is already calling on Trump to start delivering on the promises he made during their two hour private session, the things that no one other than the two of them and their translators actually know he committed to.   

Manafort’s Mess:  Former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort remains defiant, though his refusal to cooperate may be catching up with him.  Yesterday, Judge Ellis, the judge overseeing his Virginia case denied his lawyers’ request for a change in venue.  Despite their assertion that there are too many Democrats living in Alexandria, Virginia for him to get a fair trial, the Judge ruled against moving to the more Republican, and presumably more Manafort friendly, Roanoke.  At the same time, Special Counsel Mueller’s team asked the judge to sign off on immunity for five unidentified witnesses to facilitate their testimony during Manafort’s upcoming trial which is still scheduled to begin next week unless the judge, who has a reputation for accelerating trial schedules rather than pushing them back, agrees to Manafort’s lawyers request to delay the trial for a few more months.  The judge is due to rule on that request shortly.  With virtually all of the judge’s rulings going against Manafort and Trump facing a few problems of his own, it may be time for Manafort to reconsider his position, that pardon that he seems to be staking his future on may be too much to hope for.

In Plain Sight:  Maria Butina’s woes are also increasing. Detained earlier in the week, she was formally indicted yesterday on two charges, conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. She is alleged to have tried to infiltrate US political organizations, including the NRA and the Conservative group CPAC, on behalf of Alexander Torshin, a “high-ranking Russian official.” Her lawyer asserts that she’s no spy, just a stellar American University grad student, with a 4.0 CPA who also happens to be a very sociable pro-gun enthusiast.  If she is a spy, and she probably is, she never was very covert but was very busy, she’s been seen with the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, Don Jr., and many other politicians and helped to organize the National Prayer breakfast.  She also arranged for current national security advisor John Bolton to speak to a Russian pro-gun group, remarkable considering that in Putin’s Russia few citizens are allowed to carry guns.  Butina even showed up at a July 2015 event in Las Vegas where she asked then citizen Trump what his policy toward Russia sanctions would be, if elected. The Daily Beast reports that she hosted a costume party for her birthday four days after Trump won and that some Trump campaign aides attended and that she openly bragged that she helped Trump’s campaign communicate with Russia.  While at American University Butina studied International Service with a concentration in, of all things, Cyber Policy.  As to cyber security, in the absence of guidance from the administration, the head of the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm has directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections because someone has to fill that vacuum before Trump outsources those responsibilities to Putin.